Hey guys!
So, I haven't used Productstream for about 6 months now and I have a question about derived components. We use aluminum extrusions from a supplier that we then modify, cut to length, mitre, etc. as needed. Therefore, we created a sketch of the extrusion profiles available from our supplier and save them in our library. When we create a new part, we derive that profile into the new part and then create the required length and other modifications. Our ERP program has to know what extrusion number that was used for each part, so I figured this way Productstream would contain that relationship as it was a derived part, and therefore export the BOM as we need for our ERP.
However, its looking like that is NOT the case! When I look at the part in Vault, it shows the derived components in the "Uses" tab as I would expect. However, when I assign an item to the part, it does NOT pick up the derived components.
Is there something I need to set or do in the part to 'flag' the derived component so that it comes into the Item Master? When I export the item to our ERP (via a mutual file format at this time, i.e. CSV or XML), it does not contain the extrusion information. While what I get is good, it is only about 50% of what we need. This still would require that someone in our production department has to sit down and manually connect all the parts with their respective extrusion numbers. In other words, what should be a matter of minutes to upload digitally now turns into days of man hours.
Any help here would be GREATLY appreciated. I really need this to work, and have been basing the majority of our purchasing decisions for Productstream on this functionality that I unfortunately assumed was available. I would LOVE to be proven wrong and shown that it CAN be done some how!!!!
Thanks, guys!
Scott
We run into a similar problem with handed parts. IE, we have a XXXXXX-1.ipt and XXXXXX-2.ipt for left and right hands, as well as the XXXXXXX.idw drawing, and occasionally XXXXXX-B.ipt for pre-machined blanks.
The only way I have found to tie them all together into one common Item (so that we only need to add one item to make a blanket edit) is:
1) Finding the file in the Vault Explorer
2) Right click and select "Assign Item"
3) Select Next for the "Preview Item" process
4) At the find duplicates point, right click on the "Replace with" field for the item number and click "Select Replacemetn Item"
5) In the pop-up, find the item number you wish to add the part to (XXXXXX) in our case
6) Ensure the checkbox is selected after the pop-up window is closed
7) Select "OK" to return to the Wizard
😎 "Finish"
This adds the model to the original item number as a secondary associated file. This works for us to control all the files associated with one "item" in one fell swoop, but we do not drive anything with our BOMs as we have a seperate database we work with, similar to SAP, so I can't garuntee it will work for you.
Hope this helps!
Sam Sather
Designer
Inventor 2010
Windows 7 Enterprise